


Avalanche

by oceansinmychest



Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: Behind the Scenes, Character Study, Deleted Scenes, Dialogue, Discourse, One Shot, Other, Season/Series 01, Strong Female Characters, pre-s2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23043412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceansinmychest/pseuds/oceansinmychest
Summary: An impressionable Miss Vera Bennett visits the impervious Top Dog, Jacqueline “Jacs” Holt.(The inspiration for this was cultivated from 01x04 “The Things We Do” after the strip search scene and takes place sometime after that.)
Kudos: 3





	Avalanche

**Author's Note:**

> This fic offers a glimpse as to what and who Vera will become in later seasons. I wanted to delve into the brief, fleeting dynamic we see between Vera and Jacs on the screen. Title taken from the Zola Jesus song “Avalanche.”

> ‘ & it all falls down  
> & it all comes around. ‘  
>  _Avalanche_ \- Zola Jesus

A world swathed in teal, wane gray, and corrupt shades of blue drowns every single one of them.

On her utility belt that threatens to gobble up her narrow waist, the chain swings whilst the keys to the kingdom sing. There’s a slight cant to her hips as she putters forward albeit timidly. Her crooked name badge brushes against her wilted lapels. Mousy brown bangs are swept to the side. Struggling to grasp and hold onto the ropes of professionalism, Miss Bennett is simply a young deputy, green behind the ears.

The memory of the strip search remains as fresh as a nasty papercut. Insulted and degraded, Vera tries not to let Holt faze her. After that humiliation and the burning stench, Vera visits Jacs Holt in her decorated cell, her glorified den. For once, they see eye to eye. In due time, her sympathy will wither and fade.

Beyond the façade, smoke and mirrors are dropped for a hot minute. Holt meticulously rinses her hands, wipes her tears in solitude after Vinnie’s deceit with a dry knuckle, and turns herself to stone once more. She got herself all gussied up for naught. No one needs to bear witness to her moment of weakness, including a little shitkicker like Miss Bennett. Now, a proud matriarch lounges on the edge of her cot, her back to the wall. Poised, Jacqueline Holt has never appeared so relaxed. The sickening, yellow light gives her hair a glossy sheen.

Another arthritis flare almost causes Holt to wince. She refuses to let the frailty show. Clenches her jaw and grins like a jackal. Her lips thin to form a flat line.

Ready to conform, to molt, to change, Vera stands rigidly, her once polished heels nearly touching, the gleam of them lost to the dim, groggy light within Holts’ cell.

“Look at what the cat dragged in,” Jacs muses, her eyes shining bright from mischief or the gaudy, grungy prison glow.

Young, timid, inexperienced Vera finds no humor in the situation. Instead, she clears her throat. Deputy Governor Bennett’s trying her best to be a hard-arse.

The Top Dog runs this place. Keeps the women in lines. Often, screws turn a blind eye, or strikes a deal. That’s the way it goes.

She recalls Holt’s words during the strip search. Oh, how the thought rings and reverberates within her throbbing head: _You could be quite attractive._

“You should make more of an effort,” Holt had murmured as she spread out her arms like a pair of wings ready for flight.

In some ways, Jacs reminds her of Rita Bennett with her obscene guilt-tripping. A moment of scorn flares up.

“I... I came to talk.”

A flicker of doubt accompanies a shake of the head denial. That nervous tittering appears to be a poorly formed habit. The screw twiddles her thumbs together. Toys with a loose string hanging from the bottom of her blazer.

“Talk in circles, mm?”

Normally, Vera keeps to herself. Compassion costs her dearly.

“I’m sorry” comes out a little too quickly. “I, erm, came to see how you were doing.”

Her soft underbelly testifies her vulnerability. She averts her gaze, focusing on the cracks in the floor.

“Didn’t your mother teach you better than to eavesdrop?”

Jacs sneers. Perhaps the corrosion of her face, all the lines and wrinkles, indicates a hard life. She reeks of cigarettes, cologne scents borrowed from magazine ads, and lead.

In the land of contradictions, strong personalities and passivity don’t mix.

Instantaneously, it all clicks. Holt reminds her of Mum.

Disgust, coupled with insidious envy, churns her stomach. Miss Bennett covets the unattainable: power. She feels the pangs of envy and calls it a belly ache. A fire starts to burn inside of her.

“Prison holds you captive, Vera. Are you going to lie down, surrender, and take it?”

A long cold stare pinpoints another willing, fidgeting fool. Yet, Jacqueline recognizes rot when she sees it. That crumbling sense of self-worth exposes her backbone just waiting to be fortified.

Flubbering and failing to stand her ground, her frizzy pulled back bun speaks to her frazzled state.

“I- I came to check on you. I was _worried_ for your well-being, Holt.”

She sounds far too defensive, taken aback by this accusatory tirade. Throw for a loop, Vera blinks.

Taken to extremes, gone to the run-down dire straits, Jacs hammers away at Vera’s shoddy self-esteem. Deputy Gov Bennett can be easily bent to do her will. Blackmail happens to be her forte, threats akin to a steel blade.

“Oh, Vera,” Jacs tuts. “They’re going to chew you up and spit you out. How many years do you figure that you’ll still have the nerve for corrections? One year, five tops?”

Calmly, Holt folds her hands to rest atop her chest, smoothing out the wrinkles in marring the teal by proxy. With a simple tilt of her head, she awaits a response, only to receive none.

Opening and closing her mouth, Vera flounders. She plays the part of subservient servant well.

“Vera’s too pretty of a name for the likes of you. Abigail suits you better,” she utters in a perpetual rasp courtesy of a lifetime invested in indulgence as a homage back to chain-smoking days, chin up.

Swallowing, the chord in her neck stands up. She drops her innocence; it’s been slipping for awhile now, repressed and suffocated by Mum’s overbearing cruelty. Hurt from behind used, she turns this all around. She stomps down on her heel, the act enough to strain her skinny, little calf.

“You can be so... So cruel!” She sounds downright juvenile in her backlash. Her respect for this formidable woman wanes.

Jacs laughs, low and throaty. She’s been called far worse: demeaning, debased things.

In a hellish place like this, Vera Bennett has neither the guts nor moxie to survive.

Jacqueline Holt simply does what needs to be done. She protects her assets, her son, her family. She snarls, proverbially tearing into such weak prey. A right, old miserable, manipulative cunt is pitted against a stickler for the rules and make-believe lovers.

“You’ll do **anything** for a taste of power.”

Having a knack for lashing out at others, she hisses the temptation of a coy serpent.

“That simply isn’t true.” She balks. “I was a fool to think you above slander. I thought you better than… Better than this. You owe the women that much.”

Vaguely, Vera flicks her rest, her words affected by a heavy stammer. Her heart pounds against her chest and before she becomes a cause for reckless endangerment, she opts to storm out of the cell.

An old maid’s loyalty is questioned and tested, soon to be bested.

“You and I share a single similarity. We do what needs to be done, Miss Bennett,” she calls after that high-tailed busy body.

Jacs’ laughter haunts her.

With a cycle of failure eminent at Wentworth, Vera’s no stranger to smuggling in drugs – the medication for Jacs dies alongside her upon Bea’s future reign. _It’s better this way,_ Vera convinces herself. The slack-jawed state dissipates. Oh, how she struggles to combat coercion. Swallowed by the uniform, her muscle’s in knots, her throat’s gone tight, she crooks a finger into her collar. Attempts to loosen the noose-like tie.

Is it always about choosing sides?

Past experience teaches Vera how best to move forward. In leaving the cell, she realizes how much she hates them _both_ and wishes the wicked witches dead. The thought should appall her, but a short wave of apathy washes over. Favors require payment. Again, she’ll find herself in Holt’s cell, after Jacs hangs the riot over her head like the bloody Sword of Damocles.

After the end of her shift, Vera makes no attempt to squirrel away her contents. Her possessions remain on clear display. All guards carry the clear bags for processing. For once, she’s eager to get out of dodge and hide in her room like some frightened, meek mouse.

Beyond the revolving door of governorship in due diligence, Joan Ferguson will rise to mold Vera Bennett’s life into something better, into something more meaningful.

**Author's Note:**

> The reference to Abigail is exalted from Beaumont and Fletcher’s play 'The Scornful Lady,' referring to “a lady’s maid.”


End file.
